E422 




^^. -; 



'»' 






■^^_ 



.:,0' V*^ 



> 






.0^' 






O * 1 






..^" 



6- 



^^P^i 



.'^ 



Vv* 



^-/^ 



• 1 1 



V . «. a » *V#> 





^. 


<» 










.0 .,-, 



c;-" 



'^. 



,-^0, 



^/'a;^ 









^. 






^■m 



EULOGY, 



LIFE AND CHARACTER 



GENERAL ZACHARY TAYLOR, 



DELIVERED AT THE AFRICAN CHURCH, 



On the 10th of August, 1850, 



OLIVER P. BALDWIN, Esa. 



SENIOR EDITOR OF THE RICHMOND REPUBLICAN. 



PUBLISHED BY REaUEST. 






RICHMOND: 

PRINTED BY PETER D. BERNARD. 

H^ 1850. 



• Bis 



CORRESPONDENCE, 



Richmond, August 15, 1850. 
To Oliver P. Baldwin, Esq. 

Dear Sir, — The undersigned, a Committee of the Citizens of Richmond ap- 
pointed for the purpose, respectfully request that you will furnish a copy of your 
Oration upon the Life and Character of General Taylor, delivered at the African 
Church, for publication. 

In performing this duty, we cannot forbear to express our high admiration of 
your oration; its touching eloquence; its justice to the illustrious dead; its high 
moral lone, and its fervid patriotism. 

With great respect. 

We are your friends, &c. &c, 
JAMES LYONS, 
ARCHIBALD PLEASANTS, 
SAM'L D. DENOON, 
S. MAUPIN, 
R. G. SCOTT, Sr. 
WM. H. MACFARLAND, 
WM. F. RITCHIE, 
JOHN WOMBLE, 
J. E. HEATH, 
JAMES BOSHER, 
W. C. CARRINGTON, 
J. M. DANIEL, 
W. S. TRIPLETT, 
WM. F. WATSON, 



Rich7no7id, August 15, 1850. 
Gentlemen: 

In compliance with your request, so expressive of kind and complimentary 
sentiments, the Eulogy delivered at the African Church upon the Life and Cha- 
racter of Gen. Taylor, is placed at your disposal. 

Of the kind feelings which prompted those sentiments, I am deeply sensible. 
Be pleased, gentlemen, to accept my gratelul appreciation of them, and of the 
courteous manner in which your request has been communicated. 
Very respectfully, &c. 

O. P. BALDWIN. 
Messrs. James Lyons, Archibald Pleasants, 

Sam'l D, Denoon, and others^ Committee. 



EULOGY. 



It is a sad and impressive scene by which we are this day 
surrounded. Gay banners droop in sorrow ; music breathes notes 
of woe and lamentation ; cannon boom with a solemn voice ; and 
toHing bells and sable habiliments add to the melancholy grandeur 
of the spectacle. It seems but as yesterday, that those banners 
flouted the breeze as proudly as if they felt upon them the south- 
ern gales of 1846, burthened with victory; it seems but as yes- 
terday that that music rang an inspiring march, and every bugle 
note and every deep-toned drum gave forth almost human notes 
of joy and exultation ; it seems but as yesterday that those grim 
cannon appeared to recognise a Master's footstep, as their iron 
throats sent forth a shout of Welcome to the Thunderer of the 
Rio Grande. And now, how changed ! Oh, vain and fleeting 
world ! Oh, breath of human Honor, unstable as the bright cloud 
that glows in the sunrise, then fades with the morning's breath ! 
Well might a celebrated French orator, pronouncing the funeral 
oration of a deceased monarch, lay his hand upon the cold brow 
of departed Royalty and exclaim, "There is nothing great but 
God!" 

These insignia of woe, these saddened looks and melancholy 
sounds, proclaim that a heavy affliction has been visited upon our 
people. The Head of our nation has fallen ! It is for this we 
wear these weeds of woe, these badges of vassalage to the great 
King of Terrors. Death, wherever he appears, is a solemn and 
an awful visitant. Show me the poorest and the darkest hovel in 
all this land, and Death shall make its meanest couch more pain- 
ful — its palest cheek more wan — and its deepest midnight more 
sombre, as it steals some cherished light from the hearth-stone to 
rekindle it in distant worlds. But when Death thus speaks from 
some humble and broken household shrine, few men heed or listen 
to his voice. It is only when he mounts the high eminences of 
power and place, that mankind are roused to the vanity of all 
earthly things. When the humble wild flower that decks the car- 
pet of the forest is withered in the sun's hot rays, the traveller's 



eye scarce notes its disappearance and drops no tear upon its 
grave. He is only awakened to wonder and to fear when some 
majestic tree, long the monarch of the wood, whose leafy top had 
caught the first rays of sunrise and beneath whose broad arms 
man and beast had long found shelter — some tree which for ages 
had battled with the tempest and nodded defiance to the thunderbolt, 
only at last to be devoured by envious worms — comes down with a 
sudden crash, and makes the very earth quake in its downfall. Yes, 
true it is, if Death crushes the weak, he does not spare the powerful. 
In the crowded assemblage of a national anniversary, amid the clan- 
gor of arms and the stirring blasts of military music, rides a Hero 
upon whose grey locks Fame has planted her brightest coronet, and 
whose voice in the battle has controlled its fiercest tides. Not a 
flag which does not seem to float more proudly in his presence ; 
not a soldier's heart which does not beat with a new impulse at 
the mere mention of his name. Wherever he moves, he is the 
centre of ten thousand eyes. Young men gaze with burning en- 
thusiasm upon his bronzed and war-worn cheek ; old men wonder 
to see the vigor of youth beneath the weight of years ; mothers 
point out to their children one whose fierce valor could appal the 
savage of the wilderness, yet whose affectionate simplicity could 
win the love and confidence of a child. Behold him ! Renown 
in Arms, Princely Fortune, Exalted Station, Domestic Happiness, 
a Spotless Name, Vigorous Health, the Love of Mankind, a Na- 
tion's Hopes — all, all are his I What an enviable lot seemed this 
to every admiring spectator ! Yet, could the eyes that gazed 
have been opened like those to which the prophet Elijah revealed 
the spiritual world, they would have beheld moving in that bril- 
liant throng, and by the side of its central attraction, another rider, 
mounted on a pale horse, his lance upraised, and his cold glance 
fixed upon the hero whom he had spared in a hundred battle-fields, 
until men thought him invulnerable to the shafts of fate. He sum- 
mons him to yield, and he who had never surrendered to man, 
meekly replies, "I am ready," and submits to his only Conqueror. 
Suddenly, and with scarce any premonition, the announcement 
flies over the country that the President is dead ! So sudden, so 
unexpected was that awful event, it seemed rather like the fatal 
stroke of the battle-field than death upon a peaceful bed. Asto- 
nishment and gloom sat upon all men's faces. Of the grief of his 
friends, it is unnecessary to speak. The tears of political friends 
and foemen flowed in a kindred stream. At his grave, a bereaved 



nation, forgetting party and section, bends its head in woe and 
lamentation. If aught could have added to the seventy of the 
shock, it was the critical period of our public affairs at which it 
occurred. The death of the President, at such a time, was as if 
in the midst of some heavy gale, a strong cable which held the 
ship of state to her anchors had parted, and left her to drift upon 
an unknown sea or a rock-bound shore. Men stood still with 
amazement and apprehension. The storm has not yet ceased, and 
the darkness of the future is only rendered deeper by those light- 
ning flashes of anger and discontent which rise from every quarter 
of the horizon. Yet, let us never despair of the Republic ! Let 
us hope, hope ever, hope to the last, that the clouds may pass 
away, revealing to us once more our national banner, with every 
star entire upon the war-worn flag, and blazing more brightly in 
an atmosphere made purer and clearer by the agitation of the 
elements. 

The duty has been imposed upon me, fellow-citizens, of pro- 
nouncing an eulogium upon the character of the departed Presi- 
dent. That is a task which I find already prepared to my hands. 
The life of General Taylor is his best eulogium. I shall best per- 
form my duty by briefly referring to a few incidents of that life, 
with which all are so familiar as to forbid the necessity of a de- 
tailed review. 

Zachary Taylor was born in Orange county, in this State, in 
1784. He inherited from his father. Col. Richard Taylor, the 
heroic spirit of the Revolution, and inhaled with his first, breath 
the pure and bracing atmosphere of the early morning of our 
national day. His father removed to Kentucky at a period when 
the agriculturist of that State could scarcely ensure the result of 
his labors, unless the gun stood beside the plough, and when even 
the child found his path to the school-house menaced by fierce 
savages. It was under the influence of such a state of things, 
and among a people marked by the simplicity, the frankness, and 
the homely virtues of farmers, and the courage and tact of war- 
riors, that the boyhood and youth of Zachary Taylor were passed 
and his early character formed. To these peculiar circumstances 
of his education may perhaps be traced the marked character- 
istic, by which he was ever afterwards distinguished, of devotion 
to the pursuits of Agriculture and of Arms. Remarkable in- his 
youth for energy and force of character, and animated by the 
gallant spirit which he had inherited from his Virginia ancestry, 



and which had been developed and strengthened by the scenes of 
his early life, he obtained from Mr. Jefferson, in 1808, the com- 
mission of Lieutenant in the Army of the United States. In the 
four years which ensued he enjoyed no opportunity of displaying 
peculiar military talents, or rendering distinguished services. At 
this period of his life, in comparative obscurity and inaction, it 
would have required indeed the vision of a prophet to behold in 
the western wilderness, before the feet of this humble and unas- 
suming young man, a path which was to terminate upon the 
proudest steep of military glory and the highest pinnacle of official 
power. Such an event appeared as improbable to human reason- 
ing, as was the idea to the brethren of David, when they scornfully 
advised him to attend to his few sheep in the wilderness, that he, 
the ruddy-cheeked shepherd boy, should be selected by Heaven to 
vanquish the Philistine giant, and afterwards, conquering all the 
enemies of his country, to sit, a potent monarch, upon the throne 
of Saul. So soon, however, as an opportunity presented, the 
young Lieutenant, by his spirit and energy, attracted attention, 
and in the early part of 1812 was promoted to a Captaincy for 
his services on the frontier. The last war with Great Britain 
opened before him a wide field of active employment, in meeting 
the savages who then poured down in a flood upon our borders. 
Doubtless, a youthful soldier, emulous of notoriety, might have 
desired to figure upon a more conspicuous arena, and with foemen 
worthier of his steel. But, in his youth, as in his age, the path of 
Duty was the path of contentment to Zachary Taylor. It was 
his glory to make an obscure region illustrious by great deeds, and 
to illumine the shadows of a western wilderness with the sunlight 
of a heroic and faithful mind. You well recollect his glorious de- 
fence of Fort Harrison, on the Wabash, a little stockade, the only 
protection of the white settlements in its rear, which he successfully 
defended with forty men against fifteen hundred warriors. Never 
did man display more coolness, judgment, perseverance, presence 
of mind, and more of that quality which has been styled by 
another great soldier, ^^Two d clock in the morning courage" than 
did Taylor, roused to meet these hordes of savages, amid blazing 
fires, the shrieks of women and the appalling war-whoops of the 
maddened foe. His conduct on this occasion elicited from Gen. 
Hopkins, in his despatch to Gov. Shelby of Kentucky, the high 
compliment, that "the firm and almost unparalleled defence of 
Fort Harrison by Capt. Taylor has raised for him a fabric of cha- 



9 

racier not to be increased by eulogy," and was rewarded by the 
brevet rank of Major from President Madison, the first brevet 
rank conferred by the Executive in the war of 1812. It is need- 
less for me to dwell upon the services of Major Taylor in the 
Black Hawk war, in which his gallant and successful conduct won 
for him the rank of Colonel in the First Regiment of Infantry ; 
nor upon his arduous labors and heroic conduct in Florida, where 
he gained new honors, bringing the war virtually to a close by the 
sanguinary engagement at Lake Okee-Chobee, (a battle which has 
been pronounced by high military authority "one of the best fought 
actions known to our history,") and fully justifying the opinion of 
his government, as lately expressed by Mr. Webster in his speech 
in the Senate, "that there was no man in the service more fully 
uniting the qualities of military ability and great personal prudence 
than Zachary Taylor." 

The Florida war, in which Col. Taylor had been promoted for 
his services to the rank of Brevet Brigadier General, had now 
ceased, and years passed without again demanding his active 
exertions. In the command of a division of the army in the 
Southwest, and amid the seclusion of his farm, he was passing 
what seemed to be the close of a faithful and well spent life, with 
but little prospect of again unsheathing the sword which he had 
worn so long and so well. In 1845, the year which preceded 
active hostilities with Mexico, he had passed more than three- 
score years, and had reached a period when most men begin to 
weary even of the common toils of life, and to desire and expect 
nothing in existence but quiet and repose. No one could have 
thought that, in the winter of years which spread before his feet, 
a harvest of glory was to be reaped which would throw into the 
shade the flowers of his spring and the fruits of his autumn ; that, 
amid the snows of age, his old hand would gather such evergreens 
of fame as have rarely decked youthful brows. No one could 
have imagined that the old Eagle, gone to his nest seemingly to 
repose and die, was once more, disturbed by the clamor of the 
storm, to soar from his eyrie, and dart upward, amid the thunder 
and the tempest, with a wing so bold and a flight so majestic, that 
it would dazzle even youthful eyes to follow him in his sunward 
career. Yet such was the spectacle which, with pride and amaze- 
ment, we have all beheld. The 28th of March, 1846, found Gen. 
Taylor with a small army of 2,600 men, on the Eastern bank of 
the Rio Grande. The scenes which followed are fresh in the 
2 



10 

memory of every American. Who is there that does not remem- 
ber the emotions with which he heard that the commander of the 
American forces had marched from Fort Brown to secure his 
military depot at Point Isabel, and that an immense force of the 
enemy had crossed the river? Would he be attacked on his 
march to Point Isabel ? Or would the enemy await his return ? 
Could he contest the ground successfully against such immense 
odds of well-disciplined soldiery, numbering a force nearly as 
large as the whole standing army of the United States? Such 
were the questions which every man in this country asked with 
almost trembling solicitude. In Europe, when the news arrived 
of the critical position of our small forces, there was ill-suppressed 
exultation. Americans, it was said, had pursued the paths of trade 
and commerce for thirty years, until they had become enervated 
and unfitted for the hardy employments of war. Such were the 
apprehensions of friends and the exulting hopes of foes, while for 
a time a cloud of suspense hung over the movements upon the 
Rio Grande. But who shall forget the hour when that cloud lifted 
from the battle-field, and through its broken masses the sunlight 
fell upon the American banner dancing in victory, while by its 
side, stern and fixed as some rugged rock which repels without an 
effort the ocean wave, stood a grey old warrior, calmly surveying 
the flying columns of the foe as in their headlong haste they fur- 
nished a Mexican commentary upon the American text — "/ shall 
fight the enemy in ivhatever force they oppose my march." 

The prestige of the brilliant victories of Palo Alto and Resaca 
was felt throughout the whole subsequent war, and imparted that 
feeling of invincibility to the American troops and of inferiority to 
their enemies, which inspired the one and palsied the other in 
every"subsequent conflict. The report of the battles soon reached 
Europe, and, instead of the sneers with which malicious and envi- 
ous lips were prepared to greet the tidings they anticipated, the 
warmest commendations were bestowed upon American skill and 
valor by the first soldiers of Britain, France and Russia. Senator 
King of Alabama (then in Europe) in his late handsome tribute to 
Gen. Taylor in the Senate, said that his gallantry was appreciated 
by the first military men of Europe, and that "the great Duke of 
Wellington declared, as Napoleon had declared of him on a cer- 
tain occasion, "General Taylor is a General indeed." I will not 
detain you, fellow-citizens, by details of the extraordinary victory 
over the mountain fortress of Monterey, the Quebec of Mexico, 



11 

nor dwell at length upon that battle of Buena Vista, which is pic- 
tured in indelible colors upon all our minds, and which was the 
crowning glory of his victorious career. It is a battle which 
stands by itself and will long stand by itself upon the annals of 
warfare. There have been examples of small numbers of men 
triumphing against odds as great, but they were the disciplined 
few against the undisciplined many. In the battle of Buena Vista 
the advantages of numbers and discipline were both on4he side of 
the Mexicans. Left without a single regiment of regular infantry, 
General Taylor found himself at the head of four thousand volun- 
teers, and a few companies of regular artillei-y, menaced by a 
splendid host of twenty thousand regulars. His condition filled 
the public mind of the whole country with something more than 
doubt and solicitude — with apprehension and alarm. The most 
rational hope which we all could entertain was, that he had been 
able to make the best of his way back to Monterey, the natural 
strength of which position would enable him to hold out against 
superior numbers until relief should arrive. True, it was a little 
mortifying to our national pride, to think that necessity should 
compel such a step, yet that were better than annihilation, and we 
consoled ourselves with the reflection, that even Napoleon and 
Wellington had been sometimes compelled to retreat ; and that, 
after all, a well conducted retreat requires great military skill, and 
does not necessarily impair military honor. But Zachary Taylor 
was never the man to awaken a doubt in the minds, or bring a 
blush on the cheeks of his countrymen. Like that great orator of 
Massachusetts, who so lately faced the enemies of the Constitution 
in the Capital of New England, Zachary Taylor might have said, 
"/ take no step backwards^ Instead of retiring, he advances be- 
yond Saltillo, and plants himself upon Buena Vista, as firm and 
self-sustained as the mountains above his head. Seen upon a holi- 
day celebration of the 22d of February, Zachary Taylor may have 
appeared to a careless spectator an ordinary man. But when 
deeds were to be done, which could make even the birth-day of a 
Washington more memorable in the tide of time, the true qualities 
of Taylor were developed and his giant proportions revealed. 
Never before was the birth-day of the Father of his Country cele- 
brated with such ceremonies. As the last rays of its sun fell upon 
the glittering uniforms of the Mexican troops, Zachary Taylor 
looking inwardly upon his own heart, and outwardly upon the up- 
right forms, the brawny arms, the resolute lips, the lion-like eyes 



m 

of the little band by which he was surrounded, felt in his inmost 
soul that nothing under the broad canopy of heaven is impossible 
to a true man and a true soldier, except to desert the flag of his 
country. It cannot be doubted that the presence and the influence 
of General Taylor gained the battle of Buena Vista, the most won- 
derful victory of modern times. Honor to the men of Mississippi, 
Kentucky and Illinois ; honor to the devoted Artillery ; honor to 
those heroes who fell upon the field wrapped in the garment of un- 
dying fame— to Clay, Hardin, McKee, Yell, Porter, Lincoln,— 
honor to the men of North and South, of slave State and of free, 
who fought and died, as Heaven grant that Americans ever may, 
shoulder to shoulder and heart to heart; but honor, immortal honor, 
to him, the central diamond of that circle of bright gems whose 
glance inspired and whose soul pervaded that gallant host, making 
each man breathe the atmosphere of a ThermopylEe and feel the 
spirit of a Leonidas. It has been said that Virginia, ever foremost 
in council and in field, had no representative in that greatest of 
American battles. If so, it was not the fault of her gallant sons, 
who hastened with patriotic devotion to the shores of Mexico, but 
only arrived in season to share the hardships without the laurels of 
service. Virginia must therefore be content with having furnished 
to the battle of the 22d of February the great soldier by whom it 
was achieved, and standing beneath that arch of glory, one end of 
which rests upon Yorktown and the other upon Buena Vista, be 
content with her share of fame. 

I have thus hastily sketched the military career of General Tay- 
lor, a career, which, in developing the greatness of his mind and 
the virtues of his heart, awakened the tide of popular admiration 
and gratitude which carried him to the Presidential Chair. It is 
due to the occasion that at least a brief survey should be taken of 
a character which deserves to be held up as a model to men in 
public and in private station. 

You would at once perceive, if, like the soldiers of Europe, you 
knew General Taylor only by his military career, that he was, as 
they pronounced him, a great General. You would say that while 
one victory might be gained by accident, yet, it could not be that 
by accident a man should, in a military life of forty years, win 
every battle which he fought, and, in almost every case, against 
fourfold numbers. You are impressed, as were Wellington and 
Soult, with the sagacity, the stern decision, the amplitude and ferti- 
lity of resources, the immovable firmness of the American warrior. 



13 

You discover that he had that invaluable faculty in a comnnander, 
the power of imparting to his men the most perfect confidence, so 
thai they believed in his invincibility as fully as the Mahometan in 
Destiny. Never vv^as this fact more strikingly illustrated than at 
the battle of Buena Vista, vi^hen the cry of " Old Zach's coming," 
fell with an electric shock upon friends and foes, and changed 
the whole fortunes of the day. Such was Taylor as a soldier. I 
do not claim for him the colossal and enterprising genius of Napo- 
leon. He was what an American soldier should be, a soldier of 
defence, not of aggression. Yet, I do not suppose it exaggeration 
to say, as has been said in substance by the military men of Europe, 
that neither Csesar nor Napoleon could have accomplished more, 
with the limited means at his command, than did General Taylor 
in the Mexican war, and especially at Buena Vista. It is possible 
that General Taylor, if placed at the head of the French Empire, 
might never have conceived an undertaking as gigantic as that of 
the invasion of Russia. Yet I am sure that 1 do but justice to his 
character when I suppose that, if he had been at Waterloo, he 
would have closed that day more gracefully, if not more victori- 
ously, than Napoleon, by perishing at the head of that gloriuus in- 
fantry, which, in the last hour of disaster and destruction, gave 
back this answer to the imperious summons to yield, — " The Old 
Guard can die, but cannot surrender." 

Let me pass from the skill and courage of the soldier to some 
of those moral qualities which so beautifully tempered the blaze of 
military genius. Great as was Taylor at the head of armies, he 
was greater still in his fortitude and his spirit of self abnegation. 
If he was splendid in the glory of the warrior, he was sublime in 
the humility of the man. Singularly destitute of selfish ambition 
he used no efforts to obtain posts of distinction which were to other 
men the chief objects of desire. During his long military career, 
he rarely visited that federal city where he afterwards occupied 
the chair of the Presidency. He was not one of those butterflies 
which hover in the garden of a court, admiring their own beauti- 
ful colors and living on the soft perfume of sickly adulation. He 
faithfully performed his duty on the frontier, with a pure purpose 
to serve his country and not himself. It never entered into his ho- 
nest and straight forward soul to suppose that he was going to 
Florida or to Mexico to serve the cause of Zachary Taylor. So 
that the flag of his country were victorious, his highest aspirations 



14 

were satisfied. We look with admiration upon Taylor in the 
battle-field, but he presents a spectacle of moral grandeur after the 
battle of Monterey, in the uncomplaining dignity with which he 
bore the loss of his veteran troops. There are few men who would 
not have given vent to querulous complaints, upon seeing their best 
soldiers removed, and their own triumphant career threatened with 
a sudden and disastrous eclipse. It must have been indeed a sad 
spectacle to that veteran eye, as it rested upon the soldiers of Palo 
Alto, of Kesaca, of Monterey, — those stern faces, that compact co- 
lumn, those gleaming bayonets, upon which he was looking per- 
liaps for the last time. Yet, sad as was the sight, and bitter the 
deprivation, General Taylor maintained his calm and manly port. 
He employed himself, not in lamentation over his limited means, 
but in making the most of them. He found volunteers, and con- 
verted them into regulars. His cheerful, practical, faithful spirit, 
aroused the profound respect of his countrymen, as had his battles 
their wonder and admiration. They realized the truth of the sen- 
timent, that while "pigmies are pigmies still, though perched on 
Alps," yet, " pyramids aie pyramids in vales." True it was, that 
at this period there seemed a deep twilight over General Taylor's 
fortunes, but it was the twilight which preceded the morning, — not 
the night, — and from its shadows the Sun of Buena Vista rose to 
irradiate the whole Heavens with a light which should never fade 
from the eye of man. 

If now we turn to other traits of character, we find in addition 
to the courage and skill of the soldier, and the firmness, disinte- 
restedness and modesty of the man, kindly qualities of heart which 
awaken our deepest sympathy and love. And here appears at 
once the vast superiority of Taylor over most of the great war- 
riors of ancient and modern times. With them, success was the 
great object without regard to the individual suffering by which it 
was attained. In him the rugged features of valor were softened 
by the tender impulses of compassion and benevolence. If he 
seemed a man of iron in the strife of battle, he was a Good Sama- 
ritan in the hour of victory. Behold him at Monterey arresting 
the impending bolt of destruction, lest it should crush defenceless 
women and children in its descent. In his own simple language 
to the War Department, " The consideration of Humanity was 
present to my mind." See him upon the Rio Grande often relin- 
quishing his own couch and accommodations to the sick and the 
wounded, and sending to the Hospital the choice luxuries of ice 



15 

and wine which a friend had presented for his own table. View 
him on the field of Buena Vista searching for his wounded foemen, 
and putting forth every energy for their comfort and relief; be- 
hold him in the streets of Saltillo, listening compassionately to the 
story of a poor Mexican woman, whose house had been despoiled 
by lawless men, offering her pecuniary relief, and proposing him- 
self to adopt her fatherless child. Glorious old Chieftain ! When 
thou appearest at the bar of God, leaving behind thee in this vain 
world all the military laurels which clustered so profusely upon 
thy brow, it will not be as the victorious and the faithful soldier 
that Heaven shall smile upon thy soul ! In that great hour, amid 
the solemn stillness of the universe, soft voices of widows and of 
orphans shall plead for thee with the widow's and the orphan's 
God, and from the dread tribunal of the Almighty shall that ma- 
jestic voice be heard which unbars the golden gates of Heaven — 
"I was sick and he visited me; naked and he clothed me." 
"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." 

This man, thus wonderfully combining greatness and simplicity, 
strength and gentleness, firmness and modesty, justice and benevo- 
lence, courage and humanity, exhibited through his whole life the 
influence of one controlling principle, which moulded and gave 
expression to his whole character and career. This was a stern 
sense of Duty which took no counsel of interest, of passion, or of 
any earthly motive. The only question with him was, What is 
the Right? If he ever hesitated, it was that he might discover 
the path of Right, but when found, he pursued that path wherever 
it might lead. It might conduct him through the wilderness of 
Indiana, the snows of the North-West, the swamps of Florida, or 
the ravines of Mexico, but ever and every where his guide was 
Duty, and he followed that stern leader as faithfully as if every 
step had been strewn with flowers, and as if he could have fore- 
seen that, at the end of his toilsome journey, and at an hour when 
he could only have expected the obscurity of the grave, she would 
suddenly lead him to the most towering eminence of all this world, 
and, striking from his shoulders the pilgrim's burthen of pain and 
self-denial, plant upon his brow a victorious crown amid the plau- 
dits of all mankind. 

Yet then, even then, the novel and dizzying honors of his exalted 
condition could not shake the solid structure of that self-poised 
soul. He did not, like many men who rise to sudden fortune, 
forget the friends of his early Ufe. Into the hall of state and 



power, he carried those old companions, Modesty, Humility, Dis- 
interestedness, and, in the highest seat of all — yea, even in that 
Republican edifice, he built a Throne, and placed upon it his 
guardian angel — Duty. He knew no North, no South, no East, 
n > West. Duty was the sun, whose rays fall with equal light 
upon the just and the unjust — Duty, the divinity whose voice must 
be obeyed, though the heavens fall. Strong in life, inextinguish- 
able in death, was that ruling principle. Amid the shadows which 
gathered over the eyes of the dying man, one form was distinctly 
visible even to his fading sight — not the form of Victory, with 
garlanded brow and flashing sword ; not the form of Power, 
stretching her sceptre over a vast republic ; not the form of Am- 
bition struggling for supremacy — but the upright and sublime 
figure of Duty, the guide of his youth and the counsellor of his 
age, her stern features now relaxed and beaming with an approv- 
ing smile, and her uplifted finger pointing to the skies. "/ haiie 
endeavored to perform my duty" were the words with which the 
spirit of Taylor passed from the toils of earth to the rewards of 
Heaven. 

Go stand at the grave of that man, men and women of America. 
Go, mother, and instruct your child by the light of that example, 
that it is wiser and better to be faithful and virtuous, than to bow 
the knee to popularity and sell the conscience for power. Show him 
that a great soul is great from its own intrinsic worth, and not from 
the applause of men, — that its lustre is self-derived like that of the 
sun, and not the borrowed and reflected radiance of an inferior orb. 
Go, young men of America, and imitate the character of Taylor. 
Seek not for honors, but strive to deserve them. Your course may 
not lead you over ensanguined plains, but life has battle-fields more 
terrible than those of war, — fierce contests with grovelling pas- 
sions, corroding jealousies and selfish ambition. Life has its war- 
riors in palace and cottage, in country and in town, — valiant souls 
upon whose warfare Heaven itself looks down with solicitude and 
whose victories are celebrated by angel's harps, — heroes, who, in 
conquering their own spirits, prove themselves greater than he who 
taketh a city. Better that final hour of reckoning which finishes 
the humblest path of Duty well performed, than to close even the 
magnificent course of a Wolsey with bitter memories of great 
powers sacrificed to worldly and ignoble purposes. 

The death of Taylor admonishes us all, in awful tones, that 
Jehovah is the King of Kings, and that he holds not only the life 



17 

of each man, but the destinies of this boasted Republic, in the hol- 
low of his hands. It warns us to bury sectional strife and hatred 
in his tomb, and cultivate contentment with our lot, and fraternal 
relations with each other, if we would not see the Republic follow 
its President to the grave. 

In conclusi(»n, fellow-citizens, permit me to remark, that if there 
was one passion that General Taylor had failed to conquer, it 
was his love of the American Union. In the language of an 
Irish orator, he had stood almost by the cradle of the Consti- 
tution ; he did not desire to follow it to its grave. He had seen 
the cluster of thirteen faint stars which first glimmered above our 
horizon, increased to thirty magnificent planets, revolving in gran- 
deur and harmony around the central orb. He had served beneath 
the flag of the Union in every section, until he recognised one and 
all as portions of his common country. He not only loved the 
Union, but he understood as well as any other man that love was 
its vital principle, and that when it had departed, it were as easy 
to restore life by the most powerful appliances of science, as by 
force to compel the continuance of a Union from which the spirit 
of mutual affection and confidence had departed. He himself em- 
phatically declared that when the Union could only be preserved 
by force, it would not be worth preserving. He knew that Reason, 
Charity and Truth could preserve it, when fifty thousand bayonets, 
led by a Napoleon, would only crush it in a common ruin. Zachary 
Taylor was a man of the South, but he who links those words, 
South and Disunion — he who does not know it is in the South that 
the purest, the most abiding, the most disinterested love of the Ame- 
rican Union is to be found, does foul wrong to a great and gene- 
rous people. Zachary Taylor was a son of Virginia, and Virginia 
led the way to that Union which is now menaced by the torch of 
insane fanaticism. Virginia will be the last to desert that citadel 
of the rights and the hopes of the human race. When the mother 
forgets her first-born son, and learns to loathe the child of her 
sorrows and her joys, Virginia will forget and loath? that Union 
which was born from the teeming patriotism of this giant mother 
of States and Statesmen, baptized with the best blood of the Re- 
public, and consecrated by the holy hands of Revolutionary apos- 
tles to the cause of constitutional liberty and human rights. No! 
The glories of her own youth may fade, the sceptre may pass 
from her own grasp; but, in her expiring hour, as in the meridian 
of her renown, she will exclaim, The Union of the States — The 
3 



Rights of the States — May they together be preserved, till the 
stars of our system shoot from their spheres and the sun goes out 
in eternal night. 

I know, fellow-citizens, that the hour is dark, that sectional pas- 
sions are aroused, and that the future seems pregnant with disas- 
trous results. But let us not even yet permit ourselves to dream 
of such an event as the dissolution of the American Union. Fra- 
ternal love, forbearance, reason, can save it, when even wisdom 
and eloquence would be of no avail. Let the eyes of each section 
be no longer blind to the virtues and open to the faults of others. 
The Frenchman may rise against his government ; the Hungarian 
may seek to throw off the thraldom of Austria ; the Polander 
may struggle to regain his nationality ; but if we permit this Union 
to perish until every constitutional and fraternal remedy has been 
exhausted, we shall present the first example in the world's history 
of a people who were rebels against themselves; who were 
satiated with the sweets of liberty, sick of peace and wearied with 
prosperity. Never have a people been blessed with such blessings 
as we have enjoyed under this Union ; never have a people been 
cursed with such curses as will follow its dissolution. Surely it 
cannot be that all our endowments of civil and religious liberty, of 
peace and plenty, are to be sacrificed by the madness of a few 
men who make war alike upon the Bible and the Constitution, and 
who would involve in the same ruin the shrine of religion and the 
ark of liberty. Surely, it cannot be, that as Europe is slowl}^ advanc- 
ing in rational freedom by the light of our example, we should with 
our own hands extinguish the beacon fire which guides a world on 
its weary way. Did your footsteps ever wander in a foreign land? 
Doubtless, many a grand and impressive object you there beheld, 
hallowed by the moss of antiquity, and wreathed with a thousand 
beautiful associations. Beneath the solemn shades of Westminster 
Abbey, on the immortal field of Waterloo, at the foot of St. 
Peter's massive pile, upon the plains of Marathon, you have bowed 
your head in veneration of genius, learning, piety and valor. You 
have beheld many a gorgeous spectacle of wealth and greatness, 
of power and pomp — but, tell me, among them all, did you ever 
behold a sight that so stirred the deep fountains of your heart, and 
sent the blood boiling with proud emotion through every vein, as 
when, upon sonne lonely sea, you met one of your national vessels, 
the sta?'s and stripes of your country flowing freely out over the 
frowning battery and the mountain wave? 



19 

And shall the time ever arrive when you must travel through 
the world and meet no more that flag; when neither on sea nor 
shore shall its "meteor glories" fall upon the wanderer's eye; when 
the American shall pass through the world worse than an orphan, 
a man without a country? Must I ever be condemned to feel that 
the national structure in which I dwell is not the one which was 
built by the Apostles of American Freedom and cemented by the 
blood of its martyrs ; not the one of which Washington laid the 
corner-stone, and of which Jefferson and JMadison were among the 
chief architects, — not the one which was illumined by the wisdom 
of a Marshall, and echoed the thunders of a Henry's eloquence; 
not the First Temple, which stood upon the Mount Zion of our 
American Israel, its magnificent altar gleaming through clouds of 
patriotic incense, and the heaven-enkindled fire of Freedom burn- 
ing forever upon its shrine, — no, not this Temple, but some humble 
edifice, without an altar or a priest, like that in which the discon- 
solate Jew mourns his lost Jerusalem, and, hanging his harp upon 
the willow, exclaims, "How can 1 sing the Lord's song in a 
strange land?" And must I not only give up my portion in the 
flag and history of my country, but must I yield my interest in 
any of the consecrated spots of this loved Republic? Must I 
stand on Bunker's Hill and on Lexington, and be known as a 
foreigner ? Must the man of the North press the sod of Mount 
Vernon, and mournfully exclaim, "This is no longer my country?" 
Must the world relinquish its only rallying ground of free princi- 
ples? A voice rises from the oppressed millions of Europe — Take 
not away from us our only city of refuge ! From dungeon vaults, 
and from the ashes of holy martyrs, comes a cry — Destroy not the 
only home of Religious Liberty ! From the ruins of ancient Re- 
publics, melancholy notes of warning float on every breeze. From 
the battlements of Heaven, the spirits of our fathers bend in soli- 
citude, and mourn, if grief can enter Heaven, that they have no 
human tongue to arrest our mad career. From the grave of 
Taylor, a voice seems to utter those two hallowed words — The 
Constitution! — The Union! Let but that voice be heard, and 
Taylor will not have died in vain. Let but his example be re- 
garded, and from the tears a nation sheds, a bow will spring more 
beautiful than that which glowed above his cold remains, upon 
whose radiant arch Peace and Charity, those brightest angels at 
the throne of God, will descend to heal the wounds of an aflSicted 
land. 



W46 











i^. 



v--^ 



s 



<ivr 



O^ ° " " 



-,^' 






.-^■^ 



.<^ 



>^^ 









0' 

















r. <■ 5 .'> 



■^- '^ 






^;^^ . 




<2^' 



